how many "eerie coincidences" would it take to convince you?

Question

how many eerie coincidences would it take to convince you there was something more than JUST coincidences going on? (if you don't already think theres more going on)

I mean how many times of knowing whos calling before picking up the phone?

how many times of accidentally driving a route you didn't intend, and then finding out that you'd almost certainly have been in the middle of an accident if you had gone the way you intended?

how many times avoiding something bad, by being delayed from something like missing your keys?

once in a while having a coincidence seem spooky because it can be attached to strange circumstances is reasonable to ignore as being merely a coincidence...

but what sort of frequency do you think you'd need to "buy into" there being something more than random circumstances and superstition?

how connected would a chain of coincidences have to be, to you, for it to "count"?

my opinion... I've experienced enough that I no longer belive in coincidences. everything has a purpose and reason, wether you know it or not.

and I'm not saying that god is behind it per se, in the way your meaning, but that theres more to things than random chance.
and you put far too much signifigance on death and negative experiences, everything that happens in life has a lesson to be learned, and a reason for its occurance, in the big picture.

I am not saying you have to see it as random chance, or predetermination. I'm just pondering on for those who don't belive, how much of something I experience regularly, to make them give up and accept theres more than randomness.

what about the people who did drive that route? well everything has its reasons for happening or NOT happening. but if you INTEND to go one way and "randomness" causes your mind to blip and pick the other direction, so YOU avoid that... seems like alot of FAITH to belive its merely random.

interesting how its read into by people who insist its merely coincidence....

I just think it seems like it takes alot more effort to maintain the viewpoint that its coincidence, than to accept that theres more to it.

maybe the guy who DID get into the accident, survived, where if he'd have gotten to where he was going, he'd have been in a plain crash and died! (I've experienced stranger)

I am NOT referring to the bible, or second hand testimony. but PERSONAL experiences.
and I am not saying its "god" as such. but MERELY the idea that sometimes there seems to be chain-coincidences, where stuff would one after another coincidentally hit in a row, all leading to a certain (generally positive) thing.

I guess the question is as to the line of how much statistical improbability can you tolerate before you give up it being merely random. One 1 in a million is one thing... a dozen 1 in a million chance things, coinciding, all in a row, all towards one end... thats a stretch.

Answer 1

That can all be explained by our connection to all things through the force. Just ask master Yoda.

Answer 2

How about all the times you don't know who's calling?
How many times have you been delayed by an accident?
How many times has something bad happened to you?

I don't know about you, but these things happen to me far more often than what you listed. However, we are much more likely to recognize and remember a coincidence; a non-coincidence often does not grab our attention.

Even if an unusually large number of coincidences have happened to you in particular, statistics guarantees that some people will experience a lot of coincidences, and some will experience very few, although most fall in the middle.

You are looking for some pattern, some higher order to life, you want to find one, so you convince yourself that there is one.

Besides, if there is a greater design, then some are favored and some are disfavored such that the results are identical to those of statistics.

Answer 3

No amount of "coincidences" would ever convince me of anything, except that random coincidences happen.

Here's how you can convince yourself that they're just coincidences, rather than "something more":
Keep track of all the times you think you know who's calling before you pick up the phone, but you turn out wrong. Keep track of all the times you feel like taking another road, and it turns out you wouldn't have been in an accident. Keep track of ALL of the "false positives", then compare those to the number of times things are "spooky" -- it'll soon be clear to you that you're wrong more times than you're right. It's just that humans have selective memories, and tend to forget the "wrong" times. If you paid more attention, you'd soon find that it really is just coincidence, that there's nothing special going on, and it's nothing more than random chance.

Answer 4

YEEEESSSSSSS!!!!!

Thank you, the exact same thing happens to me too.

The ones I love are when I have something planned, I suddenly come across something that needs to be done or someone that needs help and no matter how late I am to wherever I was supposed to go, either the other person I was supposed to meet has only just gotten there too or the rest of the world re-organizes itself around what God just had me go do.

Kind of like He's saying "Don't worry about it; I'll take care of that one." "Right now I need you to go take care of something else for me."

The way I describe it is usually to say "Ah, plans have changed; I've got a job to do".

Several examples of this would be traffic accidents I've been on the scene of, when or just after they've happened and my assistance was needed until rescue could be called, losing a day off and it turned out that I was able to get through to a juvenile shoplifter and hopefully kept him from sliding down that slippery slope of crime and helping an old lady when she had just slipped on some ice and took a hard fall right before I came out for a very delayed lunch.

I love it when God gives me a job to do.

He will set His angels over you.......and sometimes He calls in some backup too.

Answer 5

How many times have you missed something great, by misplacing your keys?

What about the guy who did take the road and got into the accident.

Was that coincidence too? In that case, everything would be coincidence (or other), making the whole concept null and void.

If this is in reference to God, then give me a break!

If this is in reference to some connection like ESP or Telekinesis, then I'll lend some credence your way.

Answer 6

Zero, because "eerie coincidences" are just that, coincidences.

The human brain is VERY good at identifying patterns. So good, that it finds patterns even when none really exist. Our brains are continually trying to make sense and reason out of disorder and chaos.

Using your example what benefit or purpose could possibly come out of knowing who was calling before you answered the phone?

Or how about all of the times that something bad did happen? Is that also part of this plan? Why is it you are only characterizing good events as something beyond coincedence?

Answer 7

Coincidences are just that - coincidences.

How many times can you say that something was more than a coincidence PRIOR To it happening?? You cant - things are only a coincidence in retrospect.....
Ive had these coincidences occcur to me before. They are nothing more than coincidences. Had I been anywhere else at the time, the same thing would have occurred....

Answer 8

There are (say) 6 billion people in the world. It's absolutely inevitable that some of them are going to have lots of good luck in a row, some of them are going to have lots of bad luck in a row, some of them are going to have alternating good and bad luck, and so on - including all possible combinations in between. There would have to be an awful lot of coincidences to make me think that something significant was going on.

Answer 9

I suppose it comes with a life time of being aware. The more you are aware of what is happening around you - the more you are aware that God is indeed looking out for you - or allowing your own choices to put you in places.
I've done that when I've actually asked God which is the better direction to turn out of a driveway - and inevitably a clear direction comes to mind - left or right at the time.
there are times in our lives when we feel invincible and that's when we take chances that get us hurt.

Answer 10

How many would it take to convince me of what? Of the existence of God?

Well, what about the people who WILL drive that route and WILL get into that accident?

What about the people who WON'T be delayed by something and WON'T avoid something bad?

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say, but that's what doesn't make sense to me.

Answer 11

I would say a good amount and I have to witness them myself...not sum1 telling me it happened or reading it in a book that was rewritten in the 1800's telling something that happened in the medieval age but people thought it was written 2000 years ago...Had a religous freak try to tell me the King James predicted the earth's roundness when that book was translated and revised in the 1800's...sad.